Paul Mwangi: Chebukati is not the commission, cannot act alone
Raila Odinga and Martha Karua’s lawyer, Paul Mwangi, has told the Supreme Court that the IEBC Chairperson Wafula Chebukati committed an irregularity by leaving out other IEBC Commissioners in tallying and verifying the votes he used to declare the president-elect.
According to Mwangi, all commissioners have equal qualifications, and the chair cannot regard commission members as subordinates.
“With respect to the powers of the chair (borrowing from the Maina Kiai case) – the chair is not the commission and has to act with the rest of the commissioners to deliver a proper constitutional decision,” said Paul Mwangi.
Mwangi told the court the commission is responsible for tallying and verifying the results, while the chair is merely responsible for declaring them.
“The power given to the Chairman of IEBC to declare the results of an election in no way gives him any power to decide what that result will be,” Mwangi said.
Mwangi further claimed that Chebukati violated the Constitution and should not be trusted.
“In terms of deciding who to believe, Chebukati has not had a complaint as to how these four commissioners worked since they got in. However, there is a list of complaints as to how he handled elections in 2017 and 2022.” Mwangi told the court.
The lawyer referred to Ruto’s affidavit and questioned how Ruto claimed that results from 27 constituencies were read despite realizing the significance of the action in the tallying process.
“The affidavits of Chebukati and Guliye is those results were not verified or read,” Mwangi said.
Paul Mwangi called Ruto’s pronunciation as president-elect an “illegitimate transfer of power” and asked the court not to grant it.